Science in the Triangle

When a Washington think tank went looking for ideas to influence how the U.S. might spend $63 billion in the next six years improving the health of people in poor countries, it came to North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park.

The RTP area is not only rich in drug researchers and scientists making medical devices with microscopically small nanotechnology, it also has a sizable contingent of global health experts.

A Duke University study determined that two years ago the state’s global health sector supported more than 7,000 jobs and $508 million in annual salaries and wages. The sector’s impact on the state’s economy was nearly the same as the textile industry’s, according to the study.

The Center for Strategic & International Studies wants to tap the Triangle’s global health expertise. On Monday, the director of CSIS’s Global Health Policy Center, Stephen Morrison, and the co-chairman of CSIS’ commission on smart global health policy, retired Admiral William Fallon, came to the Triangle to speak at a forum at the N.C. Biotechnology Center.

Visits to other global health research hot spots - Atlanta, Boston, Dallas and the Bay Area - are planned, Morrison said.

“At the heart of human security is health,” Fallon said. He added that preventable diseases and emerging infectious diseases such as avian and swine flu can affect the security of national borders and the stability of entire regions in poor countries.

“There may be something that pops up 12,000 miles away,” Fallon said. “We need to know about it and have a plan what to do about it.”

Researchers from Triangle universities, institutes and nonprofit organizations attended the forum or listened online as presentations were streamed live on the Internet. Some submitted questions via Twitter. Others had suggestions, from boosting tuition support to train more leaders in poor countries to changing international trade policies.

CSIS’s commission on smart global health policy will collect ideas and incorporate them in a landmark report due next year.

“The Washington crowd will recognize 95 percent of the names (in the report),” Fallon said.

The CSIS commission accepts suggestions at www.smartglobalhealth.org. Still, many of the local ideas may come from researchers in the Triangle Global Health Consortium.

Founding members of the consortium, a brandnew organization dedicated to collaboration, are Duke University, UNC-CH, N.C. State University, RTI International, Family Health International and IntraHealth International.

The consortium plans regular breakfast meetings and monthly conferences.

“The goal is to make the Triangle the place to be for global health,” said Dr. Michael Merson, founding director of the Duke Global Health Institute.